A large percentage of products used in the world either comprise materials transported or stored in conventional transport containers or are themselves materials transported or stored in conventional shipping containers. Some sources report this percentage as high as 85% of all products. As such, use and transport of these containers are important in global commerce. These containers are not usually considered disposable, as the general life cycle of conventional shipping containers includes reuse. Such reuse normally requires return of empty containers to a manufacturer where they are processed and refilled. As such, transport of these containers both in a laden condition (containing contents), and in the unladen condition (empty) is a very common shipping activity.
Transporting empty shipping containers has traditionally been by tractor trailer or railroad car. Unfortunately, transporting empty shipping containers is inefficient as the shipping volume of the trailer or railroad car, when filled with empty shipping containers, is dominated by the lost volume inside the containers. Thus, the transport agent is mostly hauling the air in the containers. The problem is compounded if the empty shipping containers are not nestable.
Attempts have been made to address this problem. In some limited instances, manufacturers shipping to one another may use and produce complementary products which the manufacturers ship to one another such that a shipping container flowing along transport lines between such manufacturers is always shipped in a laden form. For example, an agricultural products producer may ship corn syrup to an ethanol producer in the shipping containers, the ethanol producer then empties the shipping containers, fills them with ethanol, and ships them back to the agricultural products producer. Shipping containers in these commerce lines are always shipped laden such that the above noted inefficiency is minimized. Unfortunately, such complementary shipping arrangements are specialized and are very rare.
In the more common scenario, where it is not feasible to ship containers laden with products in both directions, it is desirable that shipping containers being shipped be arranged in such a manner that the number of shipping containers which can be stowed for shipping in a given volume be maximized. One manner in which to accomplish this end is to use nestable shipping containers. A nestable container is one which may be placed, at least partially, inside another similarly shaped shipping container.
Previous attempts at providing nestable shipping containers have been poorly received, because such containers have proven to be of poor integrity, prone to leakage, and unable to reliably comply with shipping container standards. This presents a major obstacle, as containers used in international commerce are required to be of sufficient integrity to pass certain international performance standards. In addition, it is been found to be difficult to separate previous nestable shipping containers from each other. Furthermore, previous nestable shipping containers are difficult to handle with conventional handling technology such as pallets, fork trucks, hand trucks, and in-house plant conveyor systems.